“I’m already right where I want to be.” She sneers like she means it. She has all the confidence of a little pony that doesn’t know what she’s done.
“What do you want to take with you?” I can’t really smile. It’s, like physically impossible, I have the one facial expression. OC smiles for me. She’s great like that.
“I’m taking you in as a magical menace!” It is just so great to see the light of justice in a pony’s eyes.
“Taking him where?” OC can’t hold a straight face and actually giggles. “You’re already right here, where you said you wanted to be.”
“Miss, we’re trying to help you!” She’s really going all in on this. “The Radoll is…”
“Mine!” I feel the air leave my fluff as her sneer turns into a snarl. “I tried to be nice, I tried to be cuddly. Maybe that’s why you thought you could just snatch away my doll! I came here to make friends! And you lied to me and tried to steal my doll!”
“You are going to put me down.” The decisively sky blue pegasus does what she was always going to do, and I scramble back to OC. She’s sky blue now, Rosie. Deal with it. “It’s alright girl. You're in contro, you are always in controll.”
“It’s not alright, Uncle!” The break in her voice is a schism across my existence. “The surface wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“We weren’t watching you, miss.” Rosie continues to fail to make things better. “We were watching the doll.”
“You’re from Bridlewood Mr. Rose Thorn.” OC’s vexxed, hell she’s angry. We are in harmony in this. “How long were you watching Gloomy Sonnet, taking pictures of her doll? Don’t forget I already know.”
“I’m not a thing you can steal, Officer Petal.” I only wish I could smile. For real smile. “Your colt friend needs to answer that question. How long has he been following the fillies that carried me?”
“Our database goes back maybe 10 years.” The mare steps back and heaves a sigh. “Rose has the oldest records because Bridlewood… specifically Izzy Moonbow received the first inter tribe contact… officially…”
“Officially?” If I had expressive eyebrows I would raise them. “Side note, OC, at some point we need to trick or coerce somepony into asking to give me facial expressions. Honestly, I can’t believe I just thought of that.”
“Focus Uncle!” She’s fluttering in agitation. Which actually makes it harder to focus. But she picks up what I’m laying down. “What do you mean ‘officially’?”
“The wrathful traders.” Well that's a new voice. I wait for OC to turn to face the newcomer. An earth pony with funny bumps on her head. And her eyes don’t focus. And my sins crawl down my spine and something is wrong. “They are strangers. Friends? Maybe. But she neither knows nor trusts the doll. Nor does the doll know nor trust her.”
“I don’t know you.” Is a statement of fact I state quite factually at the new mare.
“You don’t know him.” Wait… who is she talking to?
“I can teach you how to use the doll.” She speaks it like an offer. This is what she wants?
“If you betray me…” I have no say, this is their deal. The price is implied.
“None of us want to move against you, You’re Highness.” I swear she almost looks like a goat. And she matches my button eyes stare for sightless stare. This feels like it should be familiar. I feel an implied threat holding back anything I might say. “But unlike my friends, I actually can move against you.”
“We really do just want to help, your highness.” Rose shuffles like a sad pony towards OC. That should be illegal. It is totally coersion. “I’m sorry I misled you, but you’re involved with some very dangerous magic. And not just the Rag Doll.”
“I probably know more about Uncle than any of you!” And she is on her hind legs looking that little pony in the eye… almost. I’m just kinda holding on for dear life. That mare’s card holds me in a position of mute narrator. And OC has her teenage dander up. “Our libraries are made of the books the over-city buried!”
“And yet it is still just stories about stories, isn’t it, your highness?” Her smile sends chills through my very fluff. She’s looking straight at me and talking right past me. “Because that’s what you find in books, stories. Real history is found in the artifacts of the past. Perhaps we need a new perspective.”
-=-=-=-=-
“The hell did you just do?” Ragdoll nearly fell from his perch in shock.
“Ragdoll Charlie is only one of five artifacts that stories claimed could manipulate the universal narrative. It is a powerful and dangerous totem, but in truth it is perhaps the weakest of the five, both because of the steep price it extracts for using it’s power, and because it actually has little control over the beings who control the universal narrative itself. Essentially, it can ask the universe nicely to do what you want.” The cloven hooved earth pony turned her unfocused gaze on the rag doll. Before focusing once more on his barrer. “The greatest artifacts were lost. The original three books of words. The Book of The Too Kind Prince, The Book of the Vagabond, and The Book of the Unspoken. These books were journals written by ponies and creatures who had touched or been touched by the universal narrative and the beings who sculpt it. All of our ‘classic’ stories are based on these three books.”
“I can count to five, even dead drunk.” The Ragdoll climbed to the peak of the Ladybug’s mane. “You’ve counted four. So you figure this trump card of yours is the fifth?”
“It’s not just one card, Ragdoll Charlie.” The cloven earth pony flashed a cold smile. “I hold the Deck of Perdition. The cards that can force the hand of fate. I play my cards close. They are considered almost as cursed as you are. But make no mistake, I hold ALL the cards. Don’t push me.